The conventional process of creating enameled wire requires two steps. The first step requires converting raw materials (generally copper or aluminum rod coils, often referred to in the industry as rod stock) to wire. This process involves elongating and shaping the copper rod into wire. This is conventionally performed in a machine known in the industry as a rod breakdown machine, which can create one or two wires at a time, and operates at a very high speed. The output from rod breakdown process is typically referred to as process wire.
The second step involves coating the wire with enamel. The conventional enamel coating process involves passing the processed wire through an enameling oven, which coats the wire with enamel and then bakes the enamel to harden the enamel coating. The enameling process is much slower than the process wire manufacturing process.
Because of the difference in speed, the conventional practice in the industry is to produce large volumes of process wire using high-speed rod breakdown machines and to store the resulting process wire on spools or in baskets in a storage area. Then, when enameling is desired, a spool or basket of process wire is retrieved from the storage area and fed into the enameling oven to create the enameled wire.
This multi-step process can be inefficient. Having to produce and store process wire before enameling makes just-in-time production of custom (or small-batch) orders of enameled wire difficult. It also may result in the use of storage space for process wire that may not be enameled for a very long time.
Accordingly, a need exists for a system of processing raw rod stock into wire, which is then passed directly into an enameller without storing the wire before enameling.